OT: Which is better: XP or 2000? > Another Piracy Discussion

[David E. Gervais]

Stolen ideas, yeah I know something about that. When I was 12 years old I had an idea for a card game. I created a mock-up prototype and wrote down the rules etc. I called it "Plumber's Pipes" and sent it to Parker Brothers asking if they would be interested in marketing a game like this. They sent me a response (but kept my prototype) saying that they could not market such a game, they said they specialized in board games, not card games. Exactly 4 months later a new Parker Brother's game hit the store shelves. It was a card game called 'Waterworks' It was Exactly the same as the card game prototype I sent them but instead of a 'repair-card' they used a silly little metal wrench to indicate repairs. Boy was I one upset 12 year old, but there was nothing I could do. Later in life when I was into computers I decided to go back to this 'Plumber's pipes' idea and make a computer Version of the game. (this time I didn't send it to anyone, I just showed to my friends.) At about the same time that I finished my computer Version of 'Plumber's Pipes, a small company called LucasArts released a game called 'Pipedreams'. This time I couldn't blame anyone for stealing my idea, since it came out at virtually the same time as mine (about 2 weeks after actually) and making the game obviously took longer than that. Oh well, live and learn.

But I'm still not sure what lession I was supposed to learn? Such is life.

Can I babble or what? LOL

Cheers!

[JayBdey]

Your just making a copy of something. Stealing deprives the owner of use of the stolen goods, you can't "copy" a car. That is how they are different.

[ November 28, 2003, 19:51: Message edited by: JayBdey ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

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...I don't like the proposed contract "you can install it on one machine only".

That is how software has always been though... very few software packages are sold on a license that allows you to run them on multiple computers at once.

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Almost always such restrictions have been empty power grabs by contract lawyers which have been ignored in practice, however. Humane companies would not cause a stink, for instance, if you want to install, say, a game both on your desktop and your laptop, etc. XP goes one step further and actually tries to sabotage itself by analyzing your machine, using your Internet connection to phone home to the M$ Mother Ship, etc. That's not a practice I care to support by paying someone hundreds of dollars for XP. No way, Jose.

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The Search is still crap (annoying, clunky and doesn't always work, even once you kill the animated characters)

It has always worked perfectly for me. I have never had it fail to find a file I was searching for before (unless that file didn't exist, of course). And, it is hardly clunky...

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It always amazes me when someone uses "I never noticed a problem" as a counter-argument to "it didn't work for me". Trust us Fryon, there are cases, who knows why, when it just fails to find files that are there. I've tested and had XP search and find nothing, followed by another search program running the same search, which finds files.

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Sorting files by date backwards - any way to fix that?

Click the sort button for date again, and it reverses the order it sorts them.

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Of course you can have it re-sort manually. That's not a fix, though, it's a known work-around.

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There is weird stuff going on with the "My ..." folders

Get the power toys and you can disable ALL of those folders; just set them to whatever folder you want (even on other drives!) and it stops using them altogether.

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Good to know.

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The "you have some unused icons on your desktop" wizards.

I don't recall ever seeing that. Can you elaborate?

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Sure. You must've turned it off, but by default, every few days or weeks, XP decides to launch a wizard in the user's face, perhaps with a hateful cartoon character and cutesy "speach bubble", saying something like, "Hey, XP has noticed you haven't used some of your desktop icons in a while. Would you like to stop what you're doing, and go through a wizard that asks you about all of them, and gives an option to delete them?" Yeah, there's a way to turn it off, but it's just an example of the many annoying goofball innovations of XP.

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The annoying features I haven't figured out yet how to exorcise from the new "Start Christmas tree".

Just use the "Classic" start menu, and it is identical to the start menu in 2000 (and I think it is the same as in 98, but with the control panel stuff added, which is a good thing ).

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I do that on my own XP box at work, but there is still some crud left over that is not on 2K or 98. And the extra 2K stuff isn't particularly useful, except for disabling as many as possible of the unwanted default processes that launch and waste resources and CPU.

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some accessibility wizards opened by pressing five times the caps key for example

That is because you chose to set up the accessibility wizards when you installed the OS. Just remove them and that will stop.

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Or that were set up by default. The one that keeps happening to me, even on systems where I've told it to stop, is the "Hey, you've been holding down Control for more than five seconds - would you like to enter Accessibility mode?" wizard which attacks and messes up what I was doing at the moment. I suppose it reoccurs because of the frequent "updates" which sometimes reset default system options, such as the existance and IE association of MS Outhouse Express.

... Or make a Win98 partition to run those old DOS games. Very simply fix.

Best idea yet. (Though it's incredible that you'd write "Very simple fix" when referring to installing a second OS as a "solution" to a problem with the other OS.) In fact, that's what I have at home: one Win98SE partition, and zero XP. Works perfectly.

PvK

[JayBdey]

I've yet to find a problem with XP that I couldn't fix. I've never run into any of the problems mentioned. The search has always worked, I've never been bothered with the desktop cleanup wizard, and the "My" folders have always worked. And I have never had a major problem that caused real harm.

Why don't you guys like the new XP GUI? I think it's much better than the cold gray 9x GUI. I also like the new start menu.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by JayBdey:
Your just making a copy of something. Stealing deprives the owner of use of the stolen goods, you can't "copy" a car. That is how they are different.

Sigh... you can steal ideas just as you can steal goods. It is a slightly different form of stealing, but it is still stealing.

[JayBdey]

If someone has two cars and I steal one of them, then the owner now only has one car. If I make a copy of a song, the original still exists and is still usable.

Yes, they are different. It's just as illegal as stealing but it is a separate and different crime.

[Fyron]

Almost always such restrictions have been empty power grabs by contract lawyers which have been ignored in practice, however. Humane companies would not cause a stink, for instance, if you want to install, say, a game both on your desktop and your laptop, etc. XP goes one step further and actually tries to sabotage itself by analyzing your machine, using your Internet connection to phone home to the M$ Mother Ship, etc. That's not a practice I care to support by paying someone hundreds of dollars for XP. No way, Jose.

No... almost always such restrictions have been how software is sold. It has nothing to do with being humane. Note that I said RUN, not INSTALL. There is a world of difference between having a piece of software installed on two computers and only using one at a time, and then having that software installed on two computers and using both installs at the same time (such as pirating an OS by installing it on more than one computer).

It always amazes me when someone uses "I never noticed a problem" as a counter-argument to "it didn't work for me".

That was not my "counter argument". My statement was just of the nature that you have experienced an uncommon problem.

Trust us Fryon

You are multiple people?

there are cases, who knows why, when it just fails to find files that are there. I've tested and had XP search and find nothing, followed by another search program running the same search, which finds files.

I have used the XP search extensively and it has never once failed to find a file that was there. I have used it on other computers without a hitch as well. You might have gotten your copy of XP from a OEM manufacturer that did something to the kernals to alter the search function.

Of course you can have it re-sort manually. That's not a fix, though, it's a known work-around.

That is assuming that the order you want it sorted is the only correct order. They had to pick an order. That is not a bug in any shape or form.

Sure. You must've turned it off, but by default, every few days or weeks, XP decides to launch a wizard in the user's face, perhaps with a hateful cartoon character and cutesy "speach bubble", saying something like, "Hey, XP has noticed you haven't used some of your desktop icons in a while. Would you like to stop what you're doing, and go through a wizard that asks you about all of them, and gives an option to delete them?" Yeah, there's a way to turn it off, but it's just an example of the many annoying goofball innovations of XP.

Hmm... I have never once turned that off, nor even heard of such a feature. Must only be in some Versions of XP home...

I do that on my own XP box at work, but there is still some crud left over that is not on 2K or 98. And the extra 2K stuff isn't particularly useful, except for disabling as many as possible of the unwanted default processes that launch and waste resources and CPU.

It is quite easy to customize what is in the start menu (especially easy to do in XP). Again, how you want it to look is most certainly not the "right" way to do it, nor the only way. Just because you don't like the default start meny does NOT mean that there is anything wrong with it, just that you don't like it and need to customize it.

Or that were set up by default.

I have always seen the option to not install various windows components when installing XP. The accessibilty features are one of them.

The one that keeps happening to me, even on systems where I've told it to stop, is the "Hey, you've been holding down Control for more than five seconds - would you like to enter Accessibility mode?" wizard which attacks and messes up what I was doing at the moment.

You have been rather unlucky then, as it has always stayed disabled every time I have disabled it, and it stays disabled for everyone I know that uses XP.

I suppose it reoccurs because of the frequent "updates" which sometimes reset default system options, such as the existance and IE association of MS Outhouse Express.

You can easily remove those two programs, and they do stay removed if you do so.

Though it's incredible that you'd write "Very simple fix" when referring to installing a second OS as a "solution" to a problem with the other OS.

Abandoning the garbage that is the old DOS kernal is not a problem, it is a good idea! It was the cause of most 9x crashes. Of course programs written for an OS that is no longer in use are not going to be guaranteed to run well. The chains of legacy code have to be cut some time.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by JayBdey:
If someone has two cars and I steal one of them, then the owner now only has one car. If I make a copy of a song, the original still exists and is still usable.

Yes, they are different. It's just as illegal as stealing but it is a separate and different crime.

Your examples are irrelevant because they are trying to compare apples and oranges... repeating them 27 times is not going to change the fact that taking someone else's intellectual property without consent is stealing it. Let's get some dictionary definitions here:

1 : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice
2 : to come or go secretly, unobtrusively, gradually, or unexpectedly
3 : to steal or attempt to steal a base
transitive senses
1 a : to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully b : to take away by force or unjust means c : to take surreptitiously or without permission d : to appropriate to oneself or beyond one's proper share : make oneself the focus of
2 a : to move, convey, or introduce secretly : SMUGGLE b : to accomplish in a concealed or unobserved manner
3 a : to seize, gain, or win by trickery, skill, or daring b of a base runner : to reach (a base) safely solely by running and usually catching the opposing team off guard

Hmm... intellectual property... "to take the property of another wrongfully"... taking someone's intellectual property wrongfully is therefore stealing it.

[Katchoo]

Or that were set up by default. The one that keeps happening to me, even on systems where I've told it to stop, is the "Hey, you've been holding down Control for more than five seconds - would you like to enter Accessibility mode?" wizard which attacks and messes up what I was doing at the moment. I suppose it reoccurs because of the frequent "updates" which sometimes reset default system options, such as the existance and IE association of MS Outhouse Express

This sounds like "Sticky Keys", which can be disabled completely by entering the Accessiblity Options within the Control Panel.

I had a similar problem with the Shift Key while playing Wolfenstein. I used the Shift Key for sprinting, so of course I would hold it down to keep running, and because of that the game would lock up and I would get a message from WinXP Pro asking me if I wanted to enable Caps Lock (or some such nonesense).

As for this debate on "what is" or "what isn't" stealing, the fact is is that your breaking the law by obtaining software through unlicensed avenues. Breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how you cut it.

Downloading a ton of software off of Kazaa won't get you into trouble, since there's far too many people doing it for the law enforcement agenices to make a dent. Where you will get into trouble is by making those same files available for download by someone else. That's when you become an illegal software traffiker, and that's who the FBI, RCMP, and the other large Law Enforcement Agencies like to go after. All it takes is for you to put one illgotten file available for download to place you onto the criminal dartboard.

The person who gave you a copy of WinXP could find himself in serious trouble if the Police decided to take an interest (and if someone notified them) in his activites. Unfortunatley corruption starts at the top, so if I were the Police I'd be more apt to go after his Employer and their complete lack of control over their Employees, instead of the individual Employee. Incompetent Management breeds equally incompetent Employees.

The Police are so overwhelmened, understaffed, and financially strapped that it's not worthwhile to go after any software Pirate unless it's someone traffiking software over $100,000, and even then it's not guaranteed.

Say all the negative things you want about the RIAA and their lawsuits, but at the very least they've gotten the act of digital copyright violation into the spotlight. What we need now though is to have a US-based Software Company take a hard, hard, hard stance against piracy and go after a small fish, and hammer them into permenant poverty and partial imprisonment. Slamming the crap out of some 18 Year old (and their negligant parents) would be a good start in getting the US Senate/Congress to increase Police budgets and enact tougher laws to stem piracy.

Just don't cry foul if the Police break your door down and arrest you for software piracy. Sooner or later the dam is going to break and the Police will be let loose. Wether it's an illegal copy of SEIV or WinXP Pro Enterprise, it's still illegal, and I'll be there laughing at you when the Judge sentances you into eternal financial destitution.

[Fyron]

The police can not ever possibly arrest everyone that has an illegal copy of software, music, movies, etc., because there are just far too many such people.

The RIAA has been coming down hard on people (random people...) over the Last few years (including really old and really young people, like 12 year olds)... it has had little effect other than further degrading their name and destroying the Last bits of any good reputation they had.